The committee, chaired by Corporate Affairs Secretary Injeti Srinivas, will submit its report within 30 days to the government.

The government has constituted a 10-member committee to review the penal provisions under the Companies Act, 2013 and examine de-criminalisation of certain offences, Ministry of Corporate Affairs said in a statement on Sunday.

The Committee, chaired by Corporate Affairs Secretary Injeti Srinivas, would submit its report within 30 days to the government. Kotak Mahindra Bank MD Uday Kotak, former Lok Sabha Secretary General T K Vishwanathan, law firms Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas’ Executive Chairman Shardul S Shroff and AZB & Partners’ Founder Managing Partner Ajay Bahl are among the members of the panel.

“The MCA seeks to review offences under the Companies Act, 2013 as some of the offences may be required to be decriminalised and handled in an in-house mechanism, where a penalty could be levied in instances of default. This would also allow the trial courts to pay more attention on offences of serious nature,” the ministry said in the statement.

This would also allow the trial courts to pay more attention to offences of serious nature, it added. According to the ministry, it has been decided that the existing compoundable offences in the Act — offences punishable with fine only or punishable with fine or imprisonment or both, may be examined.

“A decision may be taken as to whether any of such offences may be considered as ‘civil wrongs’ or ‘defaults’ where a penalty by an adjudicating officer may be imposed in the first place and only consequent to further non-compliance of the order of such authority will it be categorised as an offence triable by a special court,” it noted.

Further, the panel would look at whether any non-compoundable offences — offence punishable with imprisonment only, or punishable with imprisonment and also with fine under the Act, may be made compoundable.

As per the statement, the committee would examine the nature of all ‘acts’ and recommend if any of such ‘acts’ may be re-categorised as ‘acts’ which attract civil liabilities wherein the company and its ‘officers in default’ are liable for penalty.

The panel would seek to put in place the broad contours of an in-house adjudicatory mechanism where penalty may be levied in a MCA21 system driven manner so that discretion is minimised, the release said.

MCA21 is the portal for stakeholders to submit statutory filings under the Companies Act. GSA Associate’s Senior Partner Amarjit Chopra, Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy’s Arghya Sengupta, former Ficci President Sidharth Birla, Smart Group’s Partner Preeti Malhotra and a Joint Secretary of the ministry are also members of the panel. The committee would also examine the existing mechanism of penalty under the Companies Act, 2013 and suggest improvements thereupon.